BLS Data Final
BUS308: Statistics for Managers
Instructor
July 30, 2012
BLS Data Final
Dohrn Transportation has a wide array of vehicles on the road daily, and each of these vehicles convey various economic effects on our budget. One significant portion of this expense is fuel. Daily operations at Dohrn Transportation require vast quantities of gasoline, thus, the proceeding report reviews projected gas prices through 2031, in order to estimate future costs while formulating approaching budgets. By reviewing the following MegaStat chart including calculations indicating trends forecasting future gasoline prices of one gallon of regular unleaded
gasoline using the linear regression formula: allows our firm to properly prepare upcoming budgets. Although trend lines can be dependable when there are no variables to be considered we must be careful to allow for a margin of error along with these factors when calculating our budget, because in reality gasoline prices are affected by much more than a trend line. Economic downturns or boon times can skew the numbers calculated above. Other factors such as natural disaster, civil unrest, or fuel shortage will also skew the findings of components within the MegaStat chart listed above. In short Dohrn Transportation would do best to use the data presented as a loose guideline when setting up future budgets with regard to estimated gasoline prices.
In his article Rising Gas Prices: Not Demand Driven, Matthew Phillips (2012) discusses the issue of mounting gasoline prices up 8% from the end of 2011, which is interesting since his article was written two weeks into February 2012. He accurately perdictes that if trends were to persist by May 2012 if not sooner the national average price per gallon would be $4.00 a gallon (Phillips, 2012). Since the current global economcy is already experiencing a critical blow and at the same time trying to recover, it can be said gasoline prices may directly effect the rate...